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The future of research lies not just in labs and field sites but in the effectiveness, adaptability and vision of the people and systems that support discovery.

However, research offices are under immense pressure. Public funding for university research is increasingly competitive and often project-based, leaving core infrastructure underfunded. Combined with the continuing proliferation of reporting requirements ¨C from grant auditing to research integrity and impact tracking ¨C this has exploded the workload of research management and administration professionals.

Those professionals, who used to focus?primarily on grant submission and compliance monitoring, are increasingly working in proactive, strategic partnership with academic staff, acting as advisers, analysts and facilitators of innovation. They help shape funding applications, design impact strategies, evaluate policy implications and manage complex partnerships.

The complexity is compounded by diverse funder requirements, which often vary significantly in their reporting formats, timelines and metrics. The introduction of new areas of scrutiny, such as foreign interference and research security, further adds to the burden, requiring universities to implement robust due diligence processes and often necessitating close collaboration with national security agencies.

In this context, recruiting and retaining experienced research management professionals has become difficult. As the scope of work expands and the stress of compliance rises, burnout is common. Many universities report high staff turnover, loss of corporate knowledge and underinvestment in training.

This isn¡¯t merely an administrative challenge; boosting the capacity of research support services is a strategic imperative for the future of higher education and national prosperity. And as a senior leader in an Australian university, I feel the responsibility to champion the required transformation.

The Australasian Research Management Society, as well as equivalent bodies in the UK, US, Canada and Europe, have noted an urgent need for better career pathways, professional development and succession planning in the research support workforce. The ¡°accidental profession¡± narrative, whereby individuals stumbled into research administration without formal training, is no longer sustainable.

The development of capabilities in data literacy, stakeholder engagement and knowledge translation, in particular, is critical to enabling research support professionals to become value-generating assets in the academic ecosystem.

We also need more sophisticated research management systems. The old paradigms ¨C manual grant workflows, fragmented data systems, siloed researcher support ¨C no longer suffice. Despite the pressures, we must seize the historic opportunity to digitise and automate the work of research offices; institutions that are already doing so are not only managing their workloads better but delivering greater value to researchers and funders.

While the initial investment and change management required for digital transformation can be significant, the long-term benefits in terms of efficiency, accuracy and strategic insight are substantial. For example, AI and machine learning are beginning to be used for tasks such as identifying suitable funding opportunities, analysing research trends or even assisting with initial reviews of grant applications for compliance. The key is not just to adopt technology but to strategically integrate it into existing workflows and processes, ensuring it genuinely enhances rather than complicates operations.

We should also explore cross-institutional collaborations to enhance resilience, reduce duplication and create economies of scale in research support ¨C all while preserving institutional autonomy and strategic direction. Such partnerships can be particularly crucial for smaller institutions, which might lack the internal capacity or resources to invest in sophisticated systems or specialist staff.

While there is still a long way to go to realise the benefits of such arrangements, the potential is being explored by some initiatives such as UK Research and Innovation¡¯s pilot of and the Scottish Funding Council¡¯s . And it is possible to conceive of shared approaches to research ethics and integrity, data preservation, export controls, grant administration or even specialist legal advice.

A culture of continuous improvement and the sharing of best practices across the sector could be further fostered by targeted pilot grants, enabling universities to experiment with new technologies, process redesigns and innovative staffing models.

More generally, policymakers and funding bodies need to recognise research infrastructure, including professional services, as critical infrastructure and fund it accordingly. One option would be to offer direct block grants for it. Alternatively, funders should explicitly allow and encourage the full costing of research management time, resources and systems within project grant proposals, rather than expecting universities to absorb these costs.

Funders should also work collaboratively with universities to reduce the reporting burden by designing systems that allow the required data to be seamlessly extracted from existing university research management systems, minimising the need for manual data collation and bespoke reports. This requires a harmonisation of data standards and reporting formats across funding agencies.

Such a supportive funding and regulatory environment would enable universities to truly ¡°do more with no more¡± and build the resilient, agile research ecosystems required for the future. Without it, however, the pressures on research offices will only intensify ¨C potentially undermining the quality and impact of national research efforts.

is pro vice-chancellor (research services) at Macquarie University. He is a member of the Australian government¡¯s Critical Infrastructure Advisory Council and co-chair of the higher education and research sector group of the government¡¯s Trusted Information Sharing Network. A past president of the Australasian Research Management Society, he has led research activities in universities, industry and funding agencies in Australia, the UK and Europe.